First Kill
by Layla Reyne
Summary: Elena falls apart after her first kill as a vampire, and Damon is there to help pick up the pieces. One-shot.


First Kill

By: Layla Reyne

Notes: Spoilers for 3X22 – The Departed. Speculation for Season 4.

**Disclaimer: The characters and other things from The Vampire Diaries are not mine. All due credit to the rightful holders.**

* * *

It had been a month since Elena's transition and getting her through it had been a team effort (Caroline's words, not his). Stefan taught her how to hunt. Blondie, being the control freak that she is, taught her how to school her heightened emotions. He taught her how to manage the bloodlust, determined not to make the same mistakes with Elena that he'd made with Stefan. Damon respected her decision to make another go at it with Stefan (though even that seemed tense as of late), but Damon put his promise to Elena above the one he made to his baby bro. He would never leave her again, especially not now as she adjusted to this new reality.

Damon had also spent the last month negotiating for their continued life in Mystic Falls. Meredith had arranged for Elena to leave the hospital as a _doubly_ lucky survivor after her second plunge off of Wickery Bridge, and no one had thought anything of the blue amulet she now wore around her neck. Concealing her transition kept Elena safe from the Founder's Council, but Alaric's declaration made things decidedly more precarious for the rest of them. Damon's past cooperation with the Council and Stefan and Caroline's relatively good behavior won them a temporary reprieve, but the growing dissension among the Council members made Damon nervous about the long term viability of this tenuous truce.

He and Stefan had taken certain precautions. They set up a safe house out of town, in Jeremy's name, and they stocked it with both human and vampire necessities. None of that would do them any good, though, if they didn't make it out of Mystic Falls before the shit hit the fan.

Well, Damon thought to himself, as he turned his face up to the shower head above, closing his eyes and letting the warm water wash over him, this was the very definition of shit hitting the fan and raining fucking chaos down on all of them. The status quo had come violently unhinged at the hands of a few renegade Council members and the unwavering humanity of the sobbing, soaking wet, vampire in his arms.

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Earlier that evening Sheriff Forbes warned him of the dissenters' plan to take action. Liz begged him to get Caroline and the others out of town at once. Damon didn't waste any time putting his evacuation plan into action, ordering everyone to meet at the school with their bags packed and ready to go. They were all assembled an hour later, except Caroline, who failed to answer or return any of Elena or Bonnie's calls.

"Come on Care, where are you. You were supposed to be here -" Elena's latest message was interrupted by Caroline's blood curdling cry of pain from the football field behind them. Elena was gone before he had time to speak, much less form a plan, and Stefan was hot on her heels.

"Jeremy, go!" Damon shouted, tossing him the keys to his car. "Get Bonnie and Matt the hell out of here now. We'll meet you at the safe house."

The ten-second head start Elena had on him was just enough time to well and truly fuck all of their tireless efforts to conceal her transition. When Damon got to the field, he saw a man poised to drive a stake into a captured Caroline's heart. A split second later, Elena launched herself at the man's back, tearing out his throat and heart in one fell swoop. The rest of the renegade Council members looked on, shocked into silence by the horror unfolding before them. To her credit, Elena let the mangled body drop to the ground without drinking any more blood, but the damage was done. Elena had been exposed.

"Elena," Damon called to her. She looked up at him like a deer caught in the headlights, her brown eyes wide as saucers, fangs barred and blood dripping from her chin. Her eyes darted over to Stefan, who was momentarily frozen, equally horror struck, next to a shaken Caroline, and then across the field to the other Council members. Her panic-filled eyes flashed back to his – and then she ran.

Damon grabbed Stefan by the arm, stopping his pursuit of Elena. "Take Caroline and get to the safe house. _I'll_ find Elena. _You_ keep the rest of her family safe."

"Damon -," Stefan began to argue.

"I'll find her. Go. Now!" Damon shouted, leaving no room for argument.

And he was already halfway across town before the first Council member came to his senses and screamed.

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Damon had searched everywhere for Elena – her house, the grill, the graveyard, the witches' mansion – all while trying to stay under the Council's radar. He needed to find Elena and get her to the safe house before the sun came up. Otherwise, they were sitting ducks.

As Damon entered the boarding house, the first thing he noticed were her blood stained chucks discarded absently in the hallway and glass from the shattered mirror littering the floor.

The sound of running water caught his attention. He bolted upstairs and stopped in the hallway to assess which direction the noise was coming from. When he realized it was coming from his bathroom, Damon paused for a moment to prepare himself for whatever version of Elena he might find inside.

When Damon rounded the corner, his heart sank at the sight of her. Even through the billowing steam, he could see Elena huddled on the floor of his shower, soaking wet, still in her blood stained clothes. She looked up at him, and he could see that the wetness on her face was not just from the water overhead. Elena let out a keening wail, and Damon instantly stepped into the shower and sank to the floor, gathering her in his arms.

"I'm a monster," she choked out between sobs.

"Elena," he replied, gently, "you are not a monster. What you did tonight was the very opposite."

Elena turned in his arms, confused and borderline hysterical. "Damon, how can you say that? I ripped that man's heart and throat out. I killed him."

"You killed someone who had a stake aimed at your best friend's heart," Damon corrected.

"But Damon-"

"Remember what happens to our emotions as vampires," Damon said, cutting her off, his hands pushing the wet hair back off her face – waiting a second or two for her attention before he continued. "Everything is heightened. And you, as a human, would go to any length to protect your loved ones. Self-sacrifice was kind of your specialty. And tonight you exposed yourself to save Caroline. Your humanity has never been more present."

Elena shook her head in protest, clearly still terrified at her own actions and careening emotions. "Damon, I'm so afraid I won't be able to stop. That I'm going to do something to throw the switch without meaning to. And I don't want to flip the switch – I can't, I can't, I can't…" Elena repeated over and over, as sobs wracked her body.

"Elena. Elena, focus," he demanded, his hands now firmly gripping either side of her face – forcing her to look directly at him. "_You_ are in control of that switch. _You_ decide whether or not to flip it. And I will always be there to pull you back from that edge. I will not let you fall over it."

"I think you may be the only one who can," Elena tearfully replied, her hands clutching at his wrists.

"I got this, Elena. I've got you," Damon replied earnestly, his thumbs caressing her cheeks. She nodded, her eyes drifting shut as she took several long deep breaths. Elena turned her face up to the water, trying to further calm herself, and Damon gently ran his hands across her face and through her hair, removing the last traces of blood from her earlier confrontation. Once finished, Damon turned off the shower with one hand and pulled her tightly back against him with the other, her head tucked beneath his chin, as he waited for her to finish pulling herself together.

After a few minutes, his anxiety for their safety finally got the better of him. "We need to get out of here, Elena," he murmured against her temple.

Elena nodded and eased her death grip on his arms. Damon stole one last lingering moment to kiss her forehead and then stood, offering his hand to help her up. "I'll go get you a change of clothes." He turned to let her finish cleaning up, and was startled when she didn't release his hand, bringing him back to her instead.

"You were wrong, Damon." Elena moved to stand right in front of him – pulling their entwined hands up to her chest. The fingers of her other hand brushed across his forehead, pushing back a few wet strands of hair, before coming to rest at his jaw.

"How's that?" he asked, his eyes slipping shut at her touch.

"I don't deserve you," Elena answered, her tone and cadence identical to his from that night in her room when he'd first bared his soul and confessed his love to her. Damon's eyes snapped open to see a single tear escaping down her cheek. He knew she had recovered that memory during her transition but this was the first time she'd acknowledged it.

"We're even then." He smirked at her, playing the moment for humor – not letting himself hope for even a second that her next words would yield a similar confession as his own.

"I love you, Damon," Elena stated – simply, quietly, confidently.

And there they were – the words he'd so desperately wanted to hear returned from her. "Even there, too," he replied, all trace of the smirk gone as he wiped the errant tear from her cheek before claiming her mouth with his own.

Where their last kiss had been frantic, passionate and undeniably hot – months of unresolved sexual tension finally boiling over – this kiss was measured, firm and full of meaning. This was the kiss he would have given her that night in her bedroom, if she had been ready for it then. Damon needed her to understand just how much he loved her – that_ she consumed him_. Elena responded with equal resolve, her arms wrapping around his neck, hands tangling in his hair and deepening their kiss.

When the trilling of her phone suddenly interrupted them, he couldn't help but chuckle at the familiar ring tone.

"Your brother is the king of shitty timing," he mumbled against her lips. Damon could feel Elena's own smile, the both of them amused by the déjà vu of it all.

"Just ignore it," Elena said, pulling him into another kiss.

A few minutes later Damon used his last ounce of willpower to disentangle himself from her. "As much as I'd like to continue this here, we really have to get to the safe house." He grabbed a towel for himself, handed one to her and then headed out into his bedroom.

As if on cue, Elena's phone rang again, this time playing Caroline's appropriately perky ring tone.

Damon picked up the phone from the floor where she'd dropped it earlier and placed it in Elena's hand. "Pick it up, or it'll be Bonnie next and so on and so forth. I'll be back in a minute."

"Care, hold on for a second," Elena spoke into the phone, and then she was standing before him – blocking his exit from the bedroom. "Thank you, Damon, for everything. I wouldn't have made it through tonight much less this past month without you."

"I will always be here, Elena." He gave her another quick kiss before looking down at the phone in her hand. "And so will Caroline now, and we all have _you_ to thank for her continued neurotic excuse of an existence," he exaggerated, waggling his eyebrows at her.

"Damon!" Elena exclaimed in mock outrage, punching him in the shoulder.

"Ouch – testy little vampire," he teased, rubbing his shoulder. "But seriously, Elena, you did good tonight."

"Admit it, you were a little proud."

"Maybe just a little." He winked back at her.

Elena laughed – a real, full laugh – the first he'd heard since her transition – and then she resumed her call with Caroline, letting her know they'd be on their way shortly. Damon turned down the hallway to finally get that change of clothes for her – his own smirk and strut back in full force and effect. He could definitely handle this new version of reality.

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_**Thanks for reading. Reviews are much appreciated.**_


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